Around the Year & Across the Pond

Mari Lwyd in the 19th century One of my favourite folk customs is one that I only became aware of a few years ago - the Mari Lwyd. As the name suggests, it comes from Wales - the south of the country, to be precise. The name means 'Grey Mare', and it is a wassailing custom carried out during the Christmas season, often between Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night. The tradition features a real horse's skull which is often decorated with coloured ribbons and can feature glass bottle eyes. The carrier is covered with a long white cloth, hiding them from view and giving the impression of a ghostly figure gliding along. In some traditions, the same skull was used each year, being buried in lime to preserve it, and dug up each December. Beginning at dusk, the Mari Lwyd would be carried through the streets, singing and dancing. The party would knock at each house in turn and a rhyming verse contest would be improvised between the Mari Lwyd party and the house's inhabitants, resemb

First footing observed in Scotland Well, 2023 is nearly over, and it's nearly time to welcome in 2024. To mark the occasion, I'm going to talk about a custom I grew up with: first footing. The tradition of the first foot is common in Scotland, and is also known close to the border in northern England. My family observed the tradition thanks to my mam, whose family in Cumbria (north west England) celebrated New Year in a big way. The idea is that to ensure good luck for the upcoming year, the first person to step over the threshold of your house after midnight strikes on New Year's Eve should be a tall, dark-haired man. At 6' 4" my dad fitted this criteria perfectly. Even today, now his hair is white, we still send him outside just before midnight so he can step back in afterwards! As a child, I never really questioned this tradition, but researching it as an adult it is suggested that the man needing to be dark-haired is a throwback to the days of Viking invasion,

Dick Whittington at Richmond Theatre, 2023-2024 A traditional Christmas in the UK would not be complete without a trip to the local pantomime. Each year, theatres fill up with families eager to see TV, music and (in recent years) social media stars take to the stage in a fairytale adapted for the modern age, with songs, audience participation and usually some sweets thrown into the audience. Some of the most common pantos are Aladdin , Cinderella , Sleeping Beauty  and The Snow Queen , but the stories are always written afresh and often contain local in-jokes. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a British tradition, panto has its roots abroad. 'Commedia dell-Arte' was a sixteenth-century Italian style of entertainment which made use of stock characters, such as Harlequin, Pantaloon and Pierrot, and a mixture of dance, music and acrobatics to tell a story. By the eighteenth century, this style of performance had made its way to London. The early pantomimes were based on classical storie

 ...gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason Why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot. (Traditional verse) Bonfire Night, or Fireworks Night, or Guy Fawkes Night... whatever you call it, it is marked on 5 November each year to commemorate the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. In 1605, a group of dissident Catholics tried - and failed - to blow up the Houses of Parliament and King James I. Their plot was discovered in the early hours of 5 November after a mysterious letter was sent to Parliament. The conspirators were tried, found guilty and hung, drawn and quartered. At the time, Londoners lit bonfires celebrating the fact that James I had survived, and in 1606 the Observance of 5th November Act was passed, enforcing an annual public day of thanksgiving known as Gunpowder Treason Day. Over the following decades, celebrations incorporated effigies of the Pope - maintaining the anti-Catholic sentiment - and often featured fireworks and mini explosives. Towards the end of the eigh

 As Halloween gets bigger and bigger in the UK, many individuals complain about how this "American holiday" is taking over. While a reluctance to open the door to strange children and hand out sweets is somewhat understandable, Halloween itself has ancient roots in Celtic culture, although some of the modern day trappings of the holiday do come from the land across the pond. The Celtic festival of Samhain ('SAH-win') was a pagan religious celebration to mark what was then the New Year and celebrate the harvest. Bonfires were a big part of the celebration, and people would wear costumes to confuse and ward off ghosts, who were believed to wander the earth at this time. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III chose 1 November as All Saints Day, and the evening before became known as All Hallows Eve, later Halloween. The idea of the dead coming into contact with the living continued. Jack-o'-Lanterns originated in Ireland, but originally, turnips were used instead of

 The Cumbrian town of Egremont is known for its Crab Fair , held annually on the third Saturday in September. Though it is a coastal town, the Fair gets its name not from the pincery sort of crab, but from crab apples. The Lord of Egremont started a tradition of giving away crab apples, and this tradition continues with the Parade of the Apple Cart, which sees apples thrown to the crowd gathered along the Main Street. The Fair has a long history: it began in 1267, and has been held continuously since then, except for interruptions due to war and, more recently, Covid.  Sporting events are a key part of the Fair. One such event is Cumberland wrestling, an ancient lakeland sport. Wrestlers lock hands behind one another's back: the object is to lift up your partner and throw them onto the ground, face up. Cock fighting and bull baiting used to be held, but these practices ended in the mid-nineteenth century. Other events include pipe smoking, racing and street dancing. The most unusua